The present invention relates to a method for linking a video image rendered by TV broadcasting and other means to information related to the video image and an information viewer, information register, information search equipment and billing method, based on such method.
On a computer network called the Internet, previously stored information is accessible over the network and can be retrieved and rendered from the World Wide Web (WWW) which would be regarded as a huge information database system wherein related information is linked together.
For building a Web site on the WWW, a method that will be described below is generally used. Information such as text, sound and images is linked by means of a hypertext language called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and described as information items on a Web page (home page) of a Web site and information as tags specifying hyperlinks to other Web pages is also described in HTML on the Web home page.
Not only bushiness users, but also general personal users can gain access to Web sites and pages by using browsing software (hereinafter referred to as a browser) run on a personal computer (PC). For improving user facilities, such a search service (hereinafter referred to as a directory service) is provided on the WWW that enables ready access to target information on a Web site/page, according to a keyword or the like entered.
With digital broadcasting using broadcasting satellites, it is possible that a plurality of information contents are linked up and that a TV program and information distributed on the Internet are linked up by using scripting languages as extensions of the HTML function for broadcasting, such as BML (Broadcast Markup Language), B-XML (Broadcast eXtensible Markup Language), and B-HTML (Broadcast HTML). Information described in these scripting languages is transmitted to users by means of framing such as standardized data broadcasting.